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Projects

A few example client projects

The HT Group

What Makes The HT Group A Top Recruiting Source

The HT Group is a full-service Texas recruiting firm that provides businesses with timely top talent and custom-tailored staffing strategies through four specialized divisions - Staffing, Professional, Technical and Search. Top-ranked by the Austin Business Journal since 2004 as the premiere Texas staffing agency, The HT Group has a trusted track record as a staffing partner that delivers on its promises. Staying at the forefront of Central and Southeast Texas staffing takes absolute commitment and integrity from every single team member. While some firms may cut corners, The HT Group upholds the highest standards in its staffing practices and professional relationships. The bottom line: Clients, candidates and the community always come first.

The HT Group has over 10 years of national and Texas recruiting expertise. Each and every seasoned recruiter knows their specialty inside-out whether it´s traditional staffing in the local market, nationwide executive search, technical contract & direct hiring, or a specific niche such as recruiting electrical engineers in the semiconductor industry. The HT Group offers a candidate pool swimming with the best talent to fit a client´s specific requirements. Mark Turpin and Jim Gilliam began The HT Group (then HT Staffing) in 2001. They wanted to use their knowledge and experience in the industry to create a different kind of staffing company - one with a unique focus on building long-term client relationships and a refreshingly respectful approach to interacting with candidates.

Together with Managing Partner Nad Elias, Turpin and Gilliam have established a company that is committed to raising the bar with integrity-first human capital solutions. The firm serves Central Texas staffing needs through its Austin office and Southeast Texas through its Beaumont, Orange and Port Arthur offices. Each office is managed by an owner/partner.

PowerTRIP

PowerTRIP is a brand created by Product Creations Group located in the heart of the Capitol City of, Austin, Texas.

Product Creations Group’s Think Tank of Engineers, Artists, Experienced Quality Control partners and Industry Specialists enable us to offer the best products with the best pricing in the industry.

Bringing quality portable power products at affordable prices to good people stems from our love for The Live Music Capitol of the World. We’re committed to using technology to help our customers make their lives happier and more convenient.

Marble Falls

Marble Falls is located in the heart of the Texas Hill Country on Highway 281. Highway 1431 intersects Highway 281 from east to west. Centrally located, it seems that all roads in Texas lead to Marble Falls. We are 45 miles northwest of Austin, 85 miles north of San Antonio, 210 miles northwest of Houston, and 190 miles southwest of Dallas.

Renowned for scenic beauty, visitors come to this area to experience our beautiful waterways and lush, rolling hills. Indigenous species range from American bald eagles during winter months to great old live oaks that shade the landscape throughout the seasons. Spring brings a burst of color with a multitude of wildflowers including our state flower, the bluebonnet. Fields and back roads are covered with blossoms as far as the eye can see. Many amateur and professional photographers and artists come to capture the natural beauty of the Highland Lakes area.

Control

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to have a web site designed?

The overall time to design and build your site will be determined by the complexity and size of the site, our current workload with other clients, and most importantly, your turnaround time when asked for decisions, feedback, and content deliverable.

If you have a deadline in mind please let us know and we will do everything we can to accommodate you.

How much are your services?

There are many aspects that factor into the cost of creating Slake applications. These costs can vary widely depending on what features you require to have and how long we estimate that it will take to complete the project. Please contact us at 512.588.5414 to get an estimate.

Do I get to see designs before development?

Absolutely. In the design phase of our project flow, we create full-color design mockups so that you can see exactly how your web application will look and function. These will be submitted to you so that you and your team can review them and respond with any feedback.

Will my website or app be easy to update?

Yes. For content management system (CMS) driven web applications, you can easily perform updates, sometimes by simply a few clicks of your mouse button. Other setups may be more difficult and would require involvement or training from the Slake team. Please contact us at 512.588.5414 for more information.

Do you offer hosting?

We are not a host. However, depending on your project requirements, we will have clear options for where you should host.. be it an AWS, Azure, Digital Ocean, Rackspace, or economical shared host.

Be wary of dev shops who also "host". This may increase costs and complications when attempting to discontinue services or migrate later.

Do you offer SEO?

Yes, we work with a partner company who offers the following packages:

Enhanced Owner-Operated B2B Starter Programs: Get your company noticed quickly while also gaining personal training so that you can keep the search engine performance on-line and efficient.

Detailed SEO Strategy Package: Designed for the aggressive business with a detailed growth plan. Includes extensive keyword analysis and research, per page SEO suggestions and tactics, and configuration, setup and integration of a Google Places bounce site.

Aggressive Platinum Search Engine Optimization Program:
Contract-based program with a focus on monthly SEO/SEM management goals. Includes a comprehensive SEO analysis of your entire website with extensive keyword research, analysis and implementation. Incorporates setup of weekly and monthly site analytics, integration and implementation of necessary page optimization, as well as custom page optimization for effective and efficient page loading. Social Networking implementation includes setup and monitoring of a Google Places bounce site, Facebook and other social networking implementation programs.

Blog

Web Design Continuum

Author: Slake
Date: 1/15/2015

In 1992, the introductory HTML 1 established a standard for web page creation. But time never stands still. By 1996, Java and JavaScript were on the scene, and in ‘97 Flash became popular. Yet even then the demand for better, easier and more powerful development tools and applications continued to press the market. Before long, CSS2 and HTML4 poked open new methods of web page construction, and by 2012 we were working with Drag & Drop, CSS 3D, Touch Screen technology, and even Full Screen APIs.

Content Management, Site Design, And User Interfaces Are Only A Portion Of The Metrics That Define Business Internet Success. To keep up in this demanding marketplace, a business must remain on the cutting edge of technology. For effective Web success, you need an Internet presence that incorporates past technology, current technology and future technology into a well-rounded and complete web design philosophy.

Know your Internet history, and in both technology and business efficiency, focus on the future.

Javascript Frameworks in A Rush

Author: Slake
Date: 03/01/2015

Defined by self-styled gurus as "The world's most popular programming language," JavaScript applications provide web masters with unique methods for enhancing the performance of individual web processes. And in an environment where flexible web design is a key aspect of quality user interaction and user satisfaction, the ability to modify and enhance existing code reigns king. However, JS frameworks take the process of enhanced coding to an even greater measure of success than JavaScript as a stand-alone coding addition.

For example: Conventional programming is about learning and applying the idiosyncrasies of a given language. Yet most of the processes necessary for crafting an efficient and dominate website merely involve stringing together API calls. Thus it makes no sense that web design teams spend days becoming experts on how Java or any other coding language initializes the static fields in core objects. In fact, in modern web crafting an understanding of the language architecture greatly outranks knowledge of the syntax within the core language.

To make it simple: Learning the details of a framework is much more efficient than learning the syntax on which the framework resides. This is not to undermine the importance of core programmers. They are the ones who design the code behind the framework. However, proficient web designers recognize that they need no longer spend months in the study of how to optimize core routines in the base language; it is too much quicker just to capture the features in the latest Apple core library.

But don't get confused. The Slake team no only takes advantage of the latest in JS framework technology; they also understand the basic syntax within the core programming languages.

Your Business Enhanced By a Java Script Framework

Whether providing a service or offering a product, you manage a unique business designed to meet the exact needs of a specific customer base. The focus of work and/or products may at times stretch the seams of a given commercial, industrial or retail application. However, for the most part your business resources are reserved to a reasonably narrow target audience.

But there is a problem: The demand for change is inevitable.

The mindset, the expectations, and the wants of even the smallest targeted customer-base flows like streams of running water. The patterns shift and turn and angle and sometimes even dead-end. In all things, customers want the newest and the latest, yet for some reason some of the old remains active and alive for years upon years.

Thus your business website must always evolve according to the current expectations of your targeted customer-base as well as the current standards of web design and available Internet technology. No business is exactly the same yet every business involves, from time to time, a need for change and refocus.

Slake is fully trained and competent in any of the following core group of recommended JavaScript framework packages:

Express.js – A minimalist web framework designed to enable rapid creation of customized Node.js API features and more.

You can build you unique business website by using a content manager, custom coding, or even a simple text editor, but one point remains obvious:

JavaScript frameworks add an essential component to the power of JavaScript programming. Sure. You can do everything by hand crafting each aspect of the JavaScript code, but what’s the sense of building the same code that a seasoned JavaScript programmer has already designed, crafted and coded?

Handling browser differences can take lots of time. JS frameworks or JS helper libraries take away the sting. Furthermore, you get advanced features for handling common JavaScript tasks and functions such as Ajax handling, animation management, and DOM manipulation.

So…

Take control of your time. Stop battling to keep your website on-track, up-to-date, and effective. Call Slake Design today and learn how your business can prosper, remain unique, and master your chosen marketplace.

AngularJS for Enhanced Productivity

Perhaps you wonder if users of the AngularJS framework are playing with a full deck. They chatter of grand solutions, rapid construction, and exceptional app efficiency, yet the old-schoolers seem reluctant to join the program.

I understand the feeling. I too am an old-schooler. And thoughts of changing births within me a feeling of fear, of automated resistance, and of a lingering desire to avoid “fixing what ain’t broken.” For me, a JavaScript framework sounds like a bloated higher-level language system. I tend to envision the difference between machine code and an Excel spreadsheet.

But what if AngularJS actually permits you to develop tighter, lighter web apps that can grow and shift even as your business does the same – and what if you don’t have to do the deep level coding?

Um. That makes me feel a strange twinge of hope. I get tired of hand coding for exact performance when it seems that other designers get the same or better effects without near the personal output. Can it actually be that modern hardware is so quick and the frameworks are so well developed as to obsolete old-school hand coding for anyone not actively crafting a new programming language?

This little introduction to AngularJS for enhanced productivity opens the vision, increases the possibilities, and wets the appetite for more. Read on.

History of AngularJS – Not So New As Some May Think

In premise, an applied JavaScript framework is simple. By taking hold of the resources used in Model-view-controller (MVC) architecture webmasters can:

Spend less time writing code

Have more fun in the process

AND wind up with better results from the final product.

The story begins in the years before time began, even back into 2009. Two men: Adam Abrons and Misko Hevery had a revelation. In this vision, they comprehended a project that offered an end-to-end web design tool wherein designers could efficiently interact with Internet applications from both the backend and the front end. The vision had a name: GetAngular.

Eventually Hevery, GetAngular, and Google came together and defined the project under a new name… AngularJS. Licensing is under the MIT license. Source protection is via a contributors license agreement (CLA) on file with Google. According to the respective Google Angular team, as of version 1.2, the framework functions correctly from within any of the following browsers:

Android

Chrome

Firefox

IE8+

iOS

AND Safari.

Right-Structuring Increases Performance In All Facets of the Angular API

Face it. Low-level programming is time consuming, complex, and the process often times hinders the creativity of web design. When the visions of the designer get scrambled within the struggles of working out tedious logic functions, the app suffers the loss. However, structured JavaScript can eliminate most of the stumbling blocks associated with low-level code writing.

In essence, structured coding enables designers to craft effective web-based apps without dealing with the complexity of step-by-step instructions. When app designers can focus on design choices derived from a stack of proven results, both excitement and fun are returned to the game. But the most thrilling aspect of crafting an Angular app is this:

The success of the project is not based upon a set of new ideas but rather it is based upon an application of the best and most successful ideas currently in ready accessibility.

AngularJS simply makes it easier for a designer to implement familiar web standards into a flexible, effective and efficient finished product. Key features of the JavaScript framework include:

Client-side templates

Data binding

Dependency injection

AND Model-view-controller (MVC) architecture design.

When applied correctly, users of AngularJS can:

Expect to craft more efficient and less complex web apps

Use MVC-focused Angular building blocks designed to separate data, logic and presentation responsibilities into a less complex format

Extend HTML by applying declarative syntax via AngularJS directives

Readily find code samples that resolve common web app problems

Improve refactoring by applying dependency injection

Practice reliable multiple environment design techniques

Communicate server caching via the $http service

AND use client-side templates to assembly a full app in any supported browser.

SEO Content Shelf life

Author: Slake
Date: 09/17/2015

Although popular opinion projects that once online, content is there forever, according to reports, contrary to popular belief, the "Internet has not defeated time." In fact, 85% of Internet content disappears within one year of presentation. Furthermore, 59% is gone in less than one week. Like everything in existence, information on the Internet gets old, decays and dies.

But what is the biggest reason for Internet data death?

The answer seems simple… Too many websites are crafted using poor search engine optimization techniques. Face it: In terms of Internet success and Internet presence, if you don't get ranked you don't exist!

According to the "Average Lifespan of a Web Page," published in the Library of congress by guest writer Nicholas Taylor, the average web page dies within 100 days. The article is, of course, speaking of web pages that have been SEO indexed by search engines. This leaves us with the assumption that pages not indexed by Google and such have even a shorter lifespan.

The survival of your website depends upon efficient search engine optimization of all pages and blog content. You must make the search engines such as Bing, Google and Yahoo notice your condition of existence. Slake can help give your personal or business website a long-lasting Internet lifespan. You need SEO writers and designers who understand your industry, the associated competition, and how to best target your keyword goals.

5 Ways Your Outdated Site is Hurting Your Business

Author: Slake
Date: 02/17/2016

Let's face it, long gone are the days where anyone can throw together a website that serves the public well. With today's high-speed internet and focus on mobile access, you need a site that isn't going to leave your customers frustrated before you've even earned their business. Here are a few quick reasons it could be time for a makeover.

1. Your site is static instead of responsive. A static site is one that is designed for a specific screen size in mind. That was fine in the early days of the internet when everyone used the same size monitor, but with the focus on mobile design and the variety of devices available, you need a site that looks good on any screen. This is where responsive design comes into play.

2. Dated design can make you lose credibility in your client's eyes. Web technology moves fast, so if you plan on doing business via the internet, you need to have a brand presence that doesn't seem lifted straight from 1996. The best design practices incorporate responsive and fluid design for a smooth and immersive experience for your customers.

3. You have no way for your customers to contact you. If you're using your website as a way to display information to your customers but you don't have any way for those customers to contact you, you're doing yourself a big disservice. An eye-catching focus on the easiest way to contact you is one of the most important changes you can make.

4. You're missing out on new technology designed to help your customer find you. If you haven't updated your web presence in a while, there's a whole host of improvements you're missing out on to help your customers find you. Meta Tags and proper SEO can do wonders for your business.

5. An outdated site can severely impact your Google Page Rank. Google's algorithms for how useful a site is to those searching can impact how much business you generate. If you're still using an outdated design that doesn't take proper search engine optimization practices in mind, you could be losing customers simply because they can't find you.